The Rise of Social Media Players and Leaders

Do you have a Facebook profile? How about a Google+ page? Which do you prefer: Facebook or Google+?

You may have both, but not use one as often as the other. You may have just one while waiting for the right time to join the other. The question is: When is the right time? Are you waiting to see which one is the better product? This issue has been the talk of the cybersphere since Google+ was released — will it be the Facebook killer that a number of other social media sites in the past have failed to become?

Do you have a Facebook profile? How about a Google+ page? Which do you prefer: Facebook or Google+?

You may have both, but not use one as often as the other. You may have just one while waiting for the right time to join the other. The question is: When is the right time? Are you waiting to see which one is the better product? This issue has been the talk of the cybersphere since Google+ was released — will it be the Facebook killer that a number of other social media sites in the past have failed to become?

As of this writing, there is no doubt that Facebook leads the social media landscape. According to statistics posted on their website, by the end of March 2012, Facebook had registered 901 million active users every month. What’s more, they also indicated that 80 percent of these active users are located outside North America. Facebook not only has one of the biggest user bases among leading social networking websites, it can also boast having a global reach, engaging users almost anywhere the internet can be accessed.

Facebook has become one of the most widely used social media advertising platforms. Today, even as advertising in social media has evolved and branched out, Facebook brand pages makes up a large chunk of the social media marketing output.

Compared to this, what does Google+ have in its favor?

Google+ Steps Up with a Vision

Barely a year old, Google+ appears to be progressing smoothly. Since the June 2011 launch which led to invite-only account setup access, Google+ has grown to more than 170 million users. The number of active users, however, is different from those who merely signed up for an account. Regardless, Google+ is still a rapidly rising player in the social media landscape, but it is not the leader that Facebook is just yet.

A significant factor that Google+ has on its side — and which will likely contribute to its future progress as a social networking platform — is its structure. From how it integrates Google’s other products and services to how it segregates social contacts through Circles, Google+ appears to be geared toward a vision of the future of how people browse and interact on the World Wide Web. More specifically, the way Google+ is set up makes it an ideal venue for personalized e-commerce and more wide-scale social interaction in the form of sharing as well as syndication through Google’s own products and RDF Site Summary (RSS). These enable Google+ to meet the challenge of Facebook’s external integration capabilities through its Application Programming Interface (API).

So, is Google+ a Facebook killer in the making, or is it doomed to fail?

Facebook Versus Google+

Google+ is far from being a Facebook killer yet. But will it ever be? Is this even the right question to ask? Both Facebook and Google+ are social media and sharing platforms that are used for personal and business reasons. In a nutshell, we can compare them thus:

Facebook:

Focusing on providing a social networking platform for its users

Basing its services on the real-world social graph

Providing support for businesses and marketers

Google+:

Allowing people to connect and share through a variety of Google services and products on a single platform

Think of it this way: Facebook is about social networking, which includes sharing. Google+ leverages Google’s near omnipresence on the web to streamline sharing across a vast online environment; all other elements of social networking are relevant and thus included. Facebook has done a 5-star job at creating a social platform that users easily spend hours on, whether they’re playing a game, interacting with other users or browsing a brand page. However, given its reach, Google is perhaps the only company in the world best positioned to achieve the goal of Google+.

So what does the future of the web hold for Google+? Will it eventually kill Facebook and claim the social media throne? Let’s delve deeper into their match-up and analyze their histories and strengths in terms of personal and business use.

The Tale of the Tape

Today, Facebook sits atop the social media throne. The champion has bested numerous other contenders and continues to hold back current social networking players. In 2009 and 2011, search giant Google launched online sharing ventures Social Search and then its own social platform Google+. This past January of 2012, Search, plus Your World was also officially launched, further empowering Google+ through a personalized search option. What is currently unfolding is an epic clash of internet giants.

In one corner, we have our reigning champion: Facebook. In the other corner, we have our challenger: Google+.